Electronic systems often incorporate valuable structures, software code, data, circuit components, intellectual property, and the like. These valuable items can be targets of espionage from competitors, foreign governments, and other adversaries. An unauthorized entity may attempt to gain possession of such systems and then use reverse engineering methodologies to harvest as much valuable technology, especially data and software, as it can. Consequently, protective technologies are incorporated into electronic systems in order to frustrate these kinds of prying activities.
Security protection can be passive or active. Passive protection generally imposes barriers of some sort that can delay, prevent, or otherwise confound reverse engineering. Active protection generally provides some response to the occurrence of one or more triggering events that indicate an unauthorized intrusion attempt is in progress. Because an important goal of active protection is to prevent valuable technology from falling into the wrong hands, the response may be a destructive action that can cause enough damage so as to render the technology valueless to the unauthorized investigator.